It was the last appeal of poor humanity.  When the pride of intellect and caste is broken; when we grovel in the dust of humiliation; when sickness and sorrow come, and the shadow of death falls upon us, and there is no hope elsewhere,—­we turn to God, who sometimes swallows the insult, and answers the appeal.

Miller raised the lady to her feet.  He had been deeply moved,—­but he had been more deeply injured.  This was his wife’s sister,—­ah, yes! but a sister who had scorned and slighted and ignored the existence of his wife for all her life.  Only Miller, of all the world, could have guessed what this had meant to Janet, and he had merely divined it through the clairvoyant sympathy of love.  This woman could have no claim upon him because of this unacknowledged relationship.  Yet, after all, she was his wife’s sister, his child’s kinswoman.  She was a fellow creature, too, and in distress.

“Rise, madam,” he said, with a sudden inspiration, lifting her gently.  “I will listen to you on one condition.  My child lies dead in the adjoining room, his mother by his side.  Go in there, and make your request of her.  I will abide by her decision.”

The two women stood confronting each other across the body of the dead child, mute witness of this first meeting between two children of the same father.  Standing thus face to face, each under the stress of the deepest emotions, the resemblance between them was even more striking than it had seemed to Miller when he had admitted Mrs. Carteret to the house.  But Death, the great leveler, striking upon the one hand and threatening upon the other, had wrought a marvelous transformation in the bearing of the two women.  The sad-eyed Janet towered erect, with menacing aspect, like an avenging goddess.  The other, whose pride had been her life, stood in the attitude of a trembling suppliant.

“You have come here,” cried Janet, pointing with a tragic gesture to the dead child,—­“you, to gloat over your husband’s work.  All my life you have hated and scorned and despised me.  Your presence here insults me and my dead.  What are you doing here?”

“Mrs. Miller,” returned Mrs. Carteret tremulously, dazed for a moment by this outburst, and clasping her hands with an imploring gesture, “my child, my only child, is dying, and your husband alone can save his life.  Ah, let me have my child,” she moaned, heart-rendingly.  “It is my only one—­my sweet child—­my ewe lamb!”

“This was my only child!” replied the other mother; “and yours is no better to die than mine!”

“You are young,” said Mrs. Carteret, “and may yet have many children,—­this is my only hope!  If you have a human heart, tell your husband to come with me.  He leaves it to you; he will do as you command.”

“Ah,” cried Janet, “I have a human heart, and therefore I will not let him go. My child is dead—­O God, my child, my child!”

She threw herself down by the bedside, sobbing hysterically.  The other woman knelt beside her, and put her arm about her neck.  For a moment Janet, absorbed in her grief, did not repulse her.  “Listen,” pleaded Mrs. Carteret.  “You will not let my baby die?  You are my sister;—­the child is your own near kin!”